Former Craigslist Call Girl Talks About Life After Sex Work
LOS ANGELES—The Daily Beast on Monday published a thoughtful first-person account by former Craigslist call girl Melissa Petro in its Women in the World section in which she talks about "another kind of indignity sex workers face—not on the job, but when they leave the trade."
Petro, who left sex work in 2007 to become a public school teacher in New York City, made news in 2011 when she lost the teaching gig job after blogging about her past sex work on the Huffington Post. Now she feels compelled to talk about what it's like to be a former sex worker in an unforgiving world.
"When it comes to leaving the trade, people need emotional and psychological support—not just money," she writes, and cites the opinion of Corey Shdaimah, the director of a program in Baltimore that helps people transition out of the trade, who believes former sex workers "need a nonjudgmental environment to make sense of their experiences, so that they can make choices that are right for them. They need to be treated like human beings. And yes, they need jobs."
AVN wrote about Petro last year in a piece about a fundraiser for the Speak Up! Media Training Program organized by the Red Umbrella Project. " Speak Up! is led by Audacia Ray and Eliyanna Kaiser, two former executive editors of $pread magazine who have worked with mainstream and independent media as part of the sex worker rights movement for many years," AVN reported at the time. "Speak Up! is the result of a need expressed by members of that community for more resources and training on how to strategically respond to and interact with media."
Petro mentioned the Project in her Daily Beast article, writing, " This past fall, I partnered with sex-worker advocacy group Red Umbrella Project in New York to launch the Becoming Writers Workshop, allowing sex workers to write their stories. The eight-week workshop culminated with a public performance and the publication of PROS(E), an anthology of writings by people in the trade. I'm hoping that programs like this will not only give people the skills to tell their stories, but will help society understand something about life in the sex trade—and reduce the stigma."
Still, she freely admits that life has been a challenge since she left teaching, and that the search to find work, hard enough in these difficult times, is exacerbated by her past.
"Admittedly," she concedes, "I have sometimes felt tempted to return to sex work. But I choose to not sell sex, as I'm too intimately acquainted with the pain that doing so would cause me. On this day, International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers, people in the industry come together to address their special vulnerability to violence and human-rights abuses. I ask that today you also think of the people who—for whatever complicated reasons—sell sex. When you think of us, I hope you realize, we're not that different than you."
Comments
last commentIts too bad she is struggling to find work and acceptance. I guarantee you there are plenty of teachers who were sluts in their college days, but since they didn't take money for the sex it is looked at differently.
She also made a mistake by writing about her escort experiences for The Huffington Post. You have to do know that is not going to go over well.
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Sex Workers are but the flip side of a coin.
We who pay them for an interaction of a sexual nature are the other side of the coin.
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Melisa, you should become a dancer.
You will still be a bad girl, but the pressure of being an escort will disappear. Plus, you can pick really nice guys to have sex with if you get horny.
And don't forget, if you get anxious, most clubs have a wide selection of adult beverages to relax with.
Finally, dancers rank pretty high in job respect, above porn stars, prostitutes, and congresswomen and only slightly lower than sorority college girls and Hooters waitresses.
Good luck with your career, and remember, guys in this Forum will never treat you like a whore. We will still love you in the morning. xoxoxox
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Pablo I can think a few who will treat her badly.
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I don't have a lot of sympathy for these women who go into a professional like Teaching and then show the stupidity to talk about something like this.
And while I recognize that many sex workers ARE victims, quite a few are not. The ex-olypian who just got outed was one of the few I've seen say quite clearly that she WASN'T a victim.
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A couple years ago I knew a dancer at the F_____ C___ who was finishing up her student teaching to be an elementary school teacher. She left when she got her degree. I hope the school never finds out she was a stripper.
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Me too, jackslash, I helped fund her education. :)
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The world is full of people who are morally judgmental about others, not so much about themselves. This is not going to change anytime soon.
Unless the world ends. See other thread.
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"The world is full of people who are morally judgmental about others, not so much about themselves. "
Yeah, alutard is a perfect example.
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You should find this intersting and I know it is of Fox news opinion page but don't let that biase you. The olympic runner who has been escorting and possible reasons why and his conclusion that sex work should be de-crimnialized.
www.foxnews.com
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She is full of shit. What did she think was going to happen when she published information about working as a prostitute? How could any girl in her right mind believe that a school would keep her on as a teacher after that?
The only difference between her former and current life is that now she is an attention whore.
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If she'd given up alcohol, she'd be viewed as a role model, but since she gave up sex work, she's evil.
Now near in mind, I do not equate prostitution with drug use, but many people view sex work as bad, or at the very least misguided. How does such a person justify persecuting a person for having given up something they view as so bad?
Fucking hypocrites.
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Under that logic you could "give up" anything bad and doing so would somehow be fine and deserving of praise?
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"Now near in mind, I do not equate prostitution with drug use, but many people view sex work as bad, or at the very least misguided. How does such a person justify persecuting a person for having given up something they view as so bad?"
Alcohol and drug use is self-destructive. Sex work is perceived as destructive to families and others (ruining relationships, spreading disease, etc.)
See it as one might be an addict kicking the habit and the other as a drug pusher quitting.
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jester: I'm trying, perhaps not well, to present a view from the perspective of those people who think destructive. If the woman had give up some other destructive behavior, such as alcoholism, she would be lauded as strong and a role model for overcoming that destructiveness. However, when the destructive behaviour she gave up is prostitution, that mindset doesn't seem to apply.
That, IMO, is hypocritical.
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